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Bliss

OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA

Each spring brought thoughts of suicide.

It began with the first warm winds of March and peaked in April when the thaw began in earnest, flooding the valley with the scent of new life.

She walked along the campus with her head tucked forward, eyes down, avoiding encounters. It was time to take off her woollies; that would make a world of difference. There was no need to jump off the knoll by Vincent Hall and make a mortal splash about a simple sultry breeze.

What was desire anyway? Just a biological function distorted by myth. She dragged her feet. And wasn't it natural that the season of birth should call up thoughts of death? Thoughts of nothingness. A wave of longing passed through her, and a shiver of fear. It was worse this year, this terrible fascination. A broken piece of pavement ended the meditation.

"Careful, lady."

She looked up with a self-deprecatory laugh, mocking her own clumsiness before anyone else could. But the man merely gave her a friendly smile, showing a missing tooth, and turned back to his digging.

They were digging everywhere, destroying sidewalks, repairing stairs, painting what needed painting, workmen in plaid shirts, heavy vests, knit caps; for a moment, the scent of blossoms and earth was crossed with a rich male fragrance. She climbed the steps of the English building and made for her class.

A few of the students were there; she waited for the others, opening her briefcase, taking out books and papers.

"This is our last meeting before exams, so if there's anything you'd like to go over ..."

Chaucer. Shakespeare. Shelley. She knew it all by heart, could conduct a class speaking Middle English if she had to, could deliver a lecture without faltering, could write a learned article on any number of great dead men, but when it came to the live ones ...

She knew it was unfair to blame everything on her looks, but after all being so tall did present definite problems. There were, she was sure, women who could make six foot one work for them, larger-than-life goddesses. She was a larger-than-life stringbean.

Beauty was skin deep; that's what they said. Only her homeliness had its beginnings in her marrow. Why else should large dark eyes, no more than moderately deep-set, look as though they were trying to hide themselves from the world? Her teeth were even, small and white; so why, when faced with a strange situation, should she smile as though she were apologizing? As for the rest of her face, it was pale and narrow, and she hated it.

In spite of everything, she achieved a certain chic, the only one possible for her frame, an angular elegance set off by Scottish tweeds, made to measure by mail. And of course there was her voice, a husky seductive thing, a gift bestowed on the wrong person. Once, as a student in journalism class, she'd been assigned to interview a soon-to-be-famous politician. He'd been cordial on the phone, more than cordial, asked her to meet him in a restaurant. The look on his face when she approached his table still repeated itself in her nightmares.

Sometimes she thought she should never have entered academic life but instead become a telephone operator and married a nice blind man.

"No more questions? ... You may leave early then." She put away her papers and books, clicked her briefcase shut. "And have a good summer."

Chairs were pushed back, notebooks closed.

A student approached her desk.

"We got a lot from your course, Leona."

One or two in every class ... young girls who developed crushes on her, seeing in their teacher's raw-boned limbo something manlike but harmless.

No doubt she should have been a lesbian. She read articles in feminist magazines by women who found the relationship satisfying. She read articles about masturbation; she could write a book on the subject.

The ten-of bell rang, calling her to devotion, only it was her three o'clock class instead of prayer, and a university, not a convent. If nuns could cope with springtime so could she.... She shuffled down the hall to her office. The window was open, and the April air filled the room, its breezes ruffling the papers on her desk, rattling the Venetian blinds, playing with the posters on her wall.

Both were travel posters of whitewashed thatch-roofed cottages smothered in ivy and flowers. Behind their tiny latticed windows—she smoothed the paper down with her hand—her secret self lived, in other centuries, with Shakespeare, Donne and Herrick.

The real window, with its vernal scents and suicidal suggestions, was an intrusion and a threat. She walked over to draw it closed. The men below were on their break, leaning on their shovels, drinking tea from plastic thermos mugs.

Among the rough crowd, she noticed the man who'd spoken to her: dark green cap over shaggy hair, massive shoulders in plaid flannel. He finished his tea and wiped his lips with the back of his wrist; as he raised his arm, the white cuff of winter underwear peeked through.

She really had to put her woollies away tomorrow.

The man with the green cap and an older man beside him took out tobacco and rolled cigarettes, bending over their shovels to light their matches in the wind.

They struck match after match but seemed to have no success.

The younger man laughed, an ignorant gap-toothed laugh. His ears stuck out, making him look slightly moronic.

The older man leaned toward him. "Better give me a light from yours, Bliss."

She smiled to herself. What a ridiculous name for such an oaf.

Hazel heaved out of her rocker and put another chunk of birch in the stove. She adjusted the draft and peeked into the oven. Bread browning.

Uh oh. Commercial over.

Back she slapped across the linoleum in her rubber sandals, settling again in the rocker with a bag of potato chips.

Young Tony Andrews appeared on the screen, sitting with his head in his hands.

"What's the matter, Tony?"

"I don't know."

Hazel chomped.

"Is it something to do with Emmeline?"

"You know I love Emmeline."

Hazel nodded her head.

"And there's nobody else?"

"I can't explain it," said Tony. "It's come over me all of a sudden, the strangest feeling ..."

His face grew big in the TV screen, and the organ music rose.

Hazel stood up and flapped to the cupboard, took out a bottle of premeasured formula.

"I found a picture in your dresser, Flora"

"A picture in my dresser?"

The baby suckled in Hazel's lap.

"A picture of young Tony Andrews."

The shed door banged, and the kitchen door.

"I'm home!"

"Take your boots off." Hazel didn't turn from the TV screen.

"I did a good drawing in school today."

"Teacher hang it on the wall?"

"Here." The child shoved it in Hazel's face.

"What's that?"

"Trees and horses."

"Did teacher say it was good?"

Janie nodded.

"Put it on top of the TV then." Hazel got to her feet and laid the baby in his crib, leaning the bottle against his teddy bear.

"Can I have some hot bread?"

"Get out the butter if you want some." Hazel set the loaves on racks, brushing their tops with melted shortening.

"Smells delicious, Mommy."

Hazel sniffed. Delicious was right. Didn't it take honorable mention up to the Sourgrass Fair?

Sourgrass was the nearest village of any size. Not that Fingabog Siding wasn't a village too. It had a post office and a school to grade six, but there wasn't hardly a hundred souls lived into it, and it didn't even have a siding. Freight trains passed by, but they never stopped no more.

Oh, she guessed she liked Fingabog good enough, though she'd rather live up to Sourgrass or, if the truth be told, smack in Town, high on the hill near the K-Mart, with a lawn and a picture window and a husband who worked in a bank.

She sliced off a piece of bread and spread it with butter. Tom Flagerty worked in a bank. She thought he liked her too, out in back of the church hall that time. "Here's your bread."

Janie grabbed the bread and stuffed it into her mouth. "Can I watch Sesame Street?"

"Go out and play." Camilla Starr was supposed to have an abortion at four o'clock.

"I don't want to go out."

"Shush." Hazel settled into her rocker.

"I can't go through with the abortion, Miles."

"Can I watch Camilla, Mommy?"

"You'll go through with it."

Janie crept over to her mother and sat down on the linoleum.

"It's murder."

Hazel nodded.

Miles clenched his hand in a fist.

Janie reached up her hand and put it inside her mother's.

"I'm not afraid of you any more, Miles."

"Good girl," said Hazel.

Miles's fist moved toward the TV screen, and the organ music rose.

"Can we watch Sesame Street now?"

"Shush."

Miles came back on the screen, shaking and frothing at the mouth.

Hazel rocked in her chair. Drugs was a terrible thing.

"Mommy, we learned a new song in school today."

"I have to have a hundred dollars"

Janie raised her voice. "'Oh Canada, glorious and free! We stand on guard, we stand on guard ...'"

"I guess I got to bath Joey"—Hazel sighed out of the rocker—"and get your father's supper."

"'Oh Canada, we stand on guard ..."

Hazel undressed the baby and put him into the plastic tub, soaping his soft fat body while he splashed and made gurgling noises.

She couldn't gripe too much. She had it pretty good to what she could have if she married, say, Cousin Eddie, who she always thought to marry. There was Eddie's woman in a tarpaper shack, with no lights, no running water, not even no TV, and kids popping out of her as fast as he put them in.

Just the same as Mum and Dad.

Mum never had nothing, not even no washer. Hazel looked at the sun shining in on her washer. She'd soon have a dryer too; she was working on it now, a real pretty one she seen in the catalogue, avocado, just nine-fifty a month.

She gave the baby a little tickle. Good job she didn't marry Eddie, still be living in Burnt Mill, without no telephone or stores or neighbors. Neighbors was a comfort. A person could look out their window here and see more than a hill of cows.

She patted the baby with talc and pinned him into his diaper.

"Look, Mommy."

Hazel turned to the TV. Big-tailed birds strutting around, flashing their feathers like fans. Land, wouldn't it be pretty in color!

"Peacocks," explained Janie.

"Be nice in color, wouldn't it."

"Can we have a color TV? Huh?"

She put the baby back in his crib. "Ask your father."

"I'm going to show Daddy my picture first thing."

"Let him take off his boots before you do." She raked the embers forward and put in two more sticks of wood. "I don't want him tracking the floors."

"Think he'll like my picture?"

Hazel sliced potatoes. "Lord knows."

"Think he'll hang it up?"

"No telling."

Potatoes was awful scabby. For what a person paid these days, they sure didn't get tit for tat. "Where you going now!"

"To meet him."

"Don't you run out without your clothes on!"

Janie was gone, boots unlaced, no jacket, no sweater, banging through the shed, into the muddy yard. Hazel looked out the window.

Janie was in her father's arms.

Potatoes not even fried, and I never washed them dishes from lunch.

"Hello, Hazel."

"Lo, Bliss."

"I did a picture for you, Daddy."

He kissed the back of Hazel's neck as she bent over the sizzling potatoes. "Good day?"

"Never enough time."

"How's Joey?"

"Look, Daddy."

"Well now." He held the picture up, turned it around.

"The other way."

"Horses, ain't it?"

"Teacher said it was good," said Hazel.

"We better hang it up then." He tacked it to the wall, alongside the two calendars from the two shops in Fingabog Siding.

"You want to see Joey?" Janie led her father to the crib.

"Hiya, kid." Bliss swung his son in the air.

"Looks cute, don't he?" asked Janie.

"Yup."

"And I looked just like him, right?"

"The very same."

"You had a bit more hair," said Hazel, stirring pea soup on the stove.

The baby pulled his father's ears.

"You think they're handles, eh?"

"Daddy, can we have a color TV?"

"No."

"It's only twenty a month," said Hazel.

"Nothing wrong with what we got." Bliss let his son dribble on him.

"For animal programs."

"Look," said Janie.

They turned to the TV, where some cats were gobbling Purina.

"You can see cats in any color you want next door to Mabel's." Bliss chuckled. "Ain't that so, Janie?"

Hazel sliced the cabbage. "Joey's due for a checkup."

"Seems like we just took him."

"Can you take off one afternoon?"

"Maybe."

"What about Friday?"

"I'll ask the boss."

She'd have to buy the Courier Thursday and check the sales, take out the pink and press it; she hoped it hadn't grown too tight. She'd put on quite a bit of weight with Joey.

"Can I come?" asked Janie.

"You got school."

"I always got school!"

"Don't whine." Or I can wear the yellow. The yellow's plenty roomy.

"It ain't fair," said Janie.

"Set the table."

"I never get to Town."

"It's just the doctor's," said Bliss.

"It ain't just the doctor's." Janie set the plates out. "You'll go to the K-Mart too."

"Come get your soup."

"Maybe I'll be sick Friday, and then you'll take me to the doctor's too."

Hazel passed the potatoes around. "You'll know the reason why if you're sick."

"Lovely weather," said Bliss.

"I never got out." Hazel blew on her soup.

Janie started to sing. "Let's go K-Marting at the K-Mart ..."

"Eat your potatoes!"

"There was a breeze from the south all morning." Bliss crunched his cabbage salad. "I'd hate to work in an office in weather like this."

"Not as though you could," said Hazel, "with sixth-grade education."

"I might've ended up custodial."

"That ain't office."

"It's indoors. Same thing."

Hazel slurped her disagreement via the pea soup.

"Suppose I was really sick?" asked Janie.

"I seen some crocuses," said Bliss.

"Did you!"

"In front of City Hall."

"They won't be up here for a month."

"You never know with this fine weather."

"The mud's hard on the floors is all I know."

"I'd sure like to take a day off and go fishing."

She could let the seams out on the pink. And Mabel could run it up on her sewing machine.

"Not that I will," said Bliss.

"Can I come fishing with you. Daddy?"

"Ain't going fishing."

"Can I go to the K-Mart with you Friday?"

Pink is more becoming than yellow. "Stop messing with your cabbage, Janie!"

"I seen a groundhog, Janie."

"Where'd you see him?"

"On the side of the road. Standing up like he was waiting for to catch a bus."

"Show me how he looked, Daddy."

"Something like this."

She'd take the pink to Mabel's tomorrow, give her lots of time to sew it good. "Pick me up a box of hair-perm on your lunch hour, Bliss."

It was spring of course, her fatal enemy, inflaming her beyond reason or logic, whispering to her beneath its gentle breezes that tonight, perhaps tonight ...

"Leona!"

"Hello, Dolly, glorious weather, isn't it?" Leona trailed after her hostess like a giraffe behind its trainer. She rarely went to parties. She saw enough of her colleagues at meetings, in the cafeteria, at the library, at the bank, at the supermarket, too much of them. Still, tonight ...

She'd done her best with herself. She was wearing the heather suit and the beige silk shirt which opened at her throat, showing her collarbones. She'd put on smart uncomfortable shoes instead of oxfords. Her skin was scented with Sikkim. She'd brushed her light-brown hair until it shone; more was impossible because her hands were inept and she refused to go to beauty parlors after coming out several times looking like a floor lamp that someone had topped with a frilly boudoir shade. Now it hung as it always did, unswervingly vertical, lopped off midway down her interminable neck.

"Taste one of these sandwiches, Leona. Sandy Coverly sent them over, and everyone says they're out of this world." Dolly Chiasson fluttered off to greet someone else, and Leona picked up a sandwich, nibbling at it with interest, as though cheese and watercress were the real purpose of her appearance at the party.

Was there anyone in the room she didn't know? Any mysterious stranger? ... She knew them all, the men with their politics and their theories, and the pretty pampered women.

Most of the women wore long, soft, slinky skirts and old-time starlet hairdos, which waved and dipped around their faces. What would it be like to have a face like Dolly Chiasson's, with cheeks like glistening petals and a mouth like a smiling bud, and a ripe little peach of a body?

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Excerpted from Bliss by Elizabeth Gundy. Copyright © 1977 Elizabeth Gundy. Excerpted by permission of OPEN ROAD INTEGRATED MEDIA.
All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
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